“Wi-Fi” is a term used to describe a wireless local area network (WLAN) product that is based on IEEE 802.11(a/b/g/n) standards. A Wi-Fi network, or wireless local area network (WLAN) is a local area network including wireless or “Wi-Fi” enabled client devices that are located in the same physical proximity and share resources, such as, Internet connection, printers, and the like. An example of a WLAN is a small office or home office (SOHO) network. Such a network may exist within a home or residential environment and is typically operated by a resident that may not necessarily be skilled with respect to setting up and configuring a WLAN or wireless client devices.
The amount and types of Wi-Fi enabled client devices for use over a home network are continually increasing and include, for instance, computers, notebook computers, tablet computers, smart phones, cameras, media players, photo frames, televisions, gaming devices, and like customer premises equipment (CPE). Thus, a user of the network may need to authenticate new wireless devices to an existing home network as new wireless devices are obtained. However, as discussed above, the typical home user may not necessarily possess any special skills with respect to wireless network configuration and security settings or be trained to have such skills.
A WLAN has an access point (AP) to which wireless devices connect to the network. In some networks, the access point is provided by a residential gateway (RG). A residential gateway refers to a device that connects multiple computers or like client devices to a single cable or digital subscriber line (DSL) for Internet access. A RG will typically include a broadband router and an Ethernet switch for attaching four or more computers by wire. The RG may also include an access point (AP) for wireless transmission as well as the cable or DSL modem. These devices may also be referred to as “home gateway” or an “Internet gateway”.
During original set up of an AP of a RG and when it is desired to add new wireless devices to an existing Wi-Fi network, the user, typically the resident of the home, will be required to configure the access point and/or wireless client devices so that the residential gateway recognizes a new client device as an approved device to be authorized connection and access to the network. Set up typically also requires configuration of security options and encryption keys for the network and communications between the residential gateway and wireless client devices. A typical configuration process can require a significant amount of user interaction and knowledge.
For purposes of simplifying this process, particularly for home networks, some wireless client devices and routers have been provided with so-called Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) functionality requiring the end user to sequentially push buttons on the client devices and router to enable automatic set up with only a minimum of user interaction. However, not all wireless client devices include a wireless client card that supports WPS; thus, this set up process is not universally useful for all client devices. As another alternative, configuration settings can be provided to a wireless client device directly via their existence on a USB flash drive. However, not all wireless client devices (smart phones, tablets, etc.) have a full size USB port and such flash drives are prone to becoming lost between times when a user may need to configure or re-configure a client device to the network.
Accordingly, an alternative configuration exchange approach which is user-friendly, security protected and more universally useful is needed. The use of USB flash drives, full size USB ports, and special wireless client cards should not necessarily be required for providing configuration information to a client device so that the same configuration exchange system can be used for all client devices.